BluRay's BD+ DRM broken

According to a press-release from SlySoft, makers of the DVD-copying software AnyDVD HD, the BD+ anti-copying system used by BluRay disks has been cracked. BD+ has been held out as some kind of uncrackable answer to the DRM wars, and was cited by many pundits for BluRay's victory over HD-DVD in the recent format wars.

Richard Doherty of the Envisioneering Group will have to revise his
statement from July, 2007 regarding BD+: "BD+, unlike AACS which
suffered a partial hack last year, won't likely be breached for 10
years". It is worth mentioning that since he made that statement only
eight months have gone by.

Peer van Heuen, head of High-Definition technologies at SlySoft adds:
"Admittedly, we are not really so fast with this because actually we
had intended to publish this release already in December as promised.
However, it was decided for strategic reasons to wait a bit for the
outcome of the "format war" between HD DVD and Blu-ray. On top of
that, we first wanted to see our assumptions confirmed about the in
the meantime released BD+ titles regarding the BD+ Virtual Machine. We
are rather proud to have brought back to earth the highly-praised and
previously "unbreakable" BD+. However, we must also admit that the
Blu-ray titles released up to now have not fully exploited the
possibilities of BD+. Future releases will undoubtedly have a modified
and more polished BD+ protection, but we are well prepared for this
and await the coming developments rather relaxed". Van Heuen adds
jokingly: "The worst-case scenario then is our boss locks us up with
only bread and water in the company dungeon for three months until we
are successful again".

5 Responses to “BluRay's BD+ DRM broken”

No one actually knows if it has indeed been broken or not. All we have to go on is the press release from SlySoft, which of course has a vested interest in selling its products.

They made the same statements last year and eventually it was discovered that it wasn’t exactly “broken”, you could just rip the titles protected with BD+ to your hard drive, where they could only be played back using a specific version of PowerDVD.

If they did indeed break it this time, then it’s great news, but at least let’s wait until more details surface before we start running headlines like “BD+ Broken!”

Only when we can rip the video and audio content from a BD+ and AACS protected Blu-Ray disc, and play it back on anything from a Linux PC to an iPod, only then can we declare it’s been broken.

BD+ titles are flooding p2p file sharing sites as we speak. It’s (mostly) been broken. There are a couple titles that have visual glitches, likely due to a slightly imperfect BD+ VM implementation. Additionally, there is one title (Hitman), which allegedly uses “more” BD+, and is not rippable yet.

Of course, with the flexibility of BD+, this will likely be an unending battle between Slysoft and FOX… so we’ll see how it plays out.

This press release is nicely dissembled. Not until the end of the third graf do they concede that the DRM contest has moved from the player to the disk. In other words, unlike with AACS, they have to spend “three months locked in a basement” reversing each major release.

The point of BD+ wasn’t that it was unbreakable. It was that it shifted the economics, so that no one “class break” would yield all future titles.

Why would I buy DVD ripping software that only had a chance of ripping all my DVDs? And how does SlySoft plan on justifying shipping a product that needs a database of title-specific DRM scheme breaks to function?

1.”No one actually knows if it has indeed been broken or not.” Be sure. It’s broken.

2. “…Additionally, there is one title (Hitman), which allegedly uses “more” BD+, and is not rippable yet.” Wrong, sorry, “Hitman” is rippable with the 6401 version of AnyDVDHD available on the slysoft.com AnyDVD forum.

3. “… The point of BD+ wasn’t that it was unbreakable….”
I would say that if someone says BD+ is safe for 10 years that is about the same thing, no?

They were wrong, period.

4. When SlySoft says they are “relaxed” awaiting the next wave of BD+ titles where is the problem? The need gets identified, gets analyzed, gets “fixed”, the users get automatic update notices and “Fair Use” moves on. Now that the thinking process is clear there is not too much that can be done to put this out of reach again